1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the invention relate to the field of microprocessors, and more specifically, to memory protection in microprocessor.
2. Description of Related Art
Security threats of microprocessor systems have become more and more alarming. A single virus or worm may cause significant damage to a business or an enterprise.
Many security measures have been developed to protect a microprocessor system from being invaded by malicious attack. One technique uses the execute disable bit in the page table entry headers to prevent certain classes of malicious buffer overflow attacks. This technique, however, may not protect against malware that uses other mechanisms to compromise the system. For example, it may not protect an inadvertent user from installing a malware at kernel privilege levels which may compromise other critical components.